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Aug 12, 2018

Autonomous vehicles won't only kill jobs. They will create them, too

When Will Mouat, 41, heard there might be a career opportunity in
self-driving cars, he jumped. Even though he did not have an engineering
background – a lawyer, Mouat had previously worked on the legal teams
at PicsArt, a software company, and Shazam, an app that recognizes music
– he was enthralled by the potential of the field.
"I would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks to work on this problem with this team," Mouat said.

The team was made up of Chris Urmson and Sterling Anderson. Urmson had
been chief technical officer of Google's self-driving car division, and
Anderson was the former head of Autopilot at Tesla. Together, they
started Aurora, one of a growing field of start-ups working on
self-driving cars.

Today, Mouat is vice president and general counsel of Aurora.
When the possibility of working in self-driving cars arose, Will Mouat,
41, put all of his energy into it. Today he’s vice president and general
counsel at Aurora.
Source: Will Mouat
When the possibility of working in self-driving cars arose, Will Mouat,
41, put all of his energy into it. Today he’s vice president and general
counsel at Aurora.

New technology is often met with fear, and self-driving cars are no
different. Americans are hesitant to trust autonomous vehicles,
according to the Pew Research Center. Two fatal accidents this year did
not improve consumer opinion.

There is also worry about the number of jobs the new technology might eliminate.
Driving change

Yet the autonomous vehicle industry is creating jobs, as well,
especially as multiple companies race to put the first self-driving car
into action. Autonomous driving job listings increased 27 percent year
over year in January 2018, according to ZipRecruiter, an online
employment marketplace. From the second quarter of 2017 to the second
quarter of 2018, the amount of postings boomed 250 percent on the site
due to a hiring spree at the beginning of the year.

There is anecdotal evidence that start-ups are growing. Aurora has
expanded from a team of three in 2016 to more than 150 people across
multiple facilities, the company said. Zoox, another start-up, said it
has grown from four people in 2014 to more than 520 today. Both
companies say they are hiring aggressively and don't expect to slow down
in the next few years.

Other more established companies are joining in. Tesla has been building
an autopilot feature since 2014, and both Apple and Google parent
company Alphabet are developing their own self-driving car models.

Traditional automotive companies are also investing. Ford recently
announced that the automaker plans to spend $4 billion on autonomous
vehicles by 2023. General Motors will pour $100 million into
self-driving cars, and Toyota launched a $2.8 billion self-driving car
company in Tokyo.
Who will be impacted first?

In 2015, some 15.5 million workers in the U.S. worked in jobs related to
driving, according to an August 2017 report from the Department of
Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration.

Only 3.8 million of those workers operate motor vehicles such as a truck
or taxi. Among those workers, truck drivers are more vulnerable to
automation because they drive mainly on highways, and that type of
navigation is easier to automate than negotiating city streets. The
remaining 11.7 million, who drive as part of job positions such as mail
carriers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians, are likely to
benefit from new technology.

The average motor vehicle operator is male and older, with less
education and pay than the typical worker, according to the Economics
and Statistics Administration report.

Still, it is one of few jobs where a worker can make more than twice the
federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour without a college education. The
2017 median pay for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers was $20.42
per hour, which adds up to $42,480 per year, according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. The median household income for all households in the
United States was $57,617 in 2016, according to the American Community
Survey.

It is estimated that autonomous cars could eliminate 300,000 driving
jobs a year, according to a May 2017 report from Goldman Sachs. But that
won't happen right away; the report estimated that from 2025 to 2030,
autonomous cars will be 20 percent of car sales.

"I would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks to work on this
problem with this team." -Will Mouat, vice president and general
counsel, Aurora

How fast new technology disrupts driving jobs is important, said Amitai
Bin-Nun, vice president of autonomous vehicles and mobility innovation
at Securing America's Future Energy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that
advocates for reducing U.S. oil dependence.

Jobs will not disappear overnight, Bin-Nun said. There are many steps
between zero and full automation. The workforce has shown resilience
during gradual transitions in the past, said Bin-Nun.

One example is the change in the agriculture industry. A century ago, most Americans worked on farms. Today, few do.

In the short term, Bin-Nun said there will be many things that make driving safer and less stressful.

"Autonomous cars are going to largely eliminate jobs seekers weren't
interested in and create opportunities in work that people will find
more rewarding," said Ian Siegel, co-founder and CEO of ZipRecruiter.

Indeed, there is already a shortage of truck drivers in the U.S. With
the unemployment rate falling to 3.9 percent in July, companies have had
difficulty recruiting for the strenuous job.
These are the top 10 autonomous driving jobs on ZipRecruiter

In the future, autonomous cars may contribute very little to
unemployment. The projected increase in the unemployment rate by
autonomous vehicles is between 0.06 and 0.13 percent during the decade
from 2045 to 2055, according to an assessment by economist Erica Groshen
published in a June 2018 report by Securing America's Future Energy.

The report also notes that new technology has historically had positive
impacts on the economy, increasing productivity and lowering costs. Two
examples are the internet and the interstate highway system.

The internet boosted company profitability 10 percent in the early
2000s, according to a 2011 study by the McKinsey Global Institute. In
turn, the interstate highway system had a return on investment of more
than 30 percent between 1950 and 1990, according to a recent report from
Compass Transportation.
Jobs available now

But careers outside of engineering are expanding in the industry. One of
the most sought-after jobs, according to ZipRecruiter, is strategic
account manager. The role is mostly focused on sales, according to the
site.

There are also increased opportunities in safety and testing as
autonomous vehicle companies race to get cars ready for the road.

"There's a huge opportunity to test your software in simulated
environments," said Bert Kaufman, head of corporate and regulatory
affairs at Zoox. Software developers have come from the gaming industry
to help build out these testing platforms for Zoox, he said.

Car maintenance and logistics positions will also continue to grow, said Kaufman.

"Whether it's maintenance technicians, fleet oversight, remote oversight
of the fleet, there's still going to be a need for service technicians
to maintain and serve the fleet," said Kaufman.

As self-driving cars become more prevalent, the kinds of jobs available will expand, said Siegel of ZipRecruiter.

"In the emergence of any new technology, the preponderance of jobs are
more skilled, more technical positions," he said. "People put layers of
simplification on top of it, which opens up access for less-trained
people to participate into that industry."

The world won't need fewer mechanics, he said. In addition, a focus on
skills could open opportunities for those without a college degree.
Societal benefits

Much like the creation of the interstate highway system or the internet,
new autonomous vehicle technology has the potential to have a
widespread impact on society.

"The benefits outweigh the cost by a large margin," said Bin-Nun.

Safety is one. Nearly 38,000 people died in car crashes in 2016,
according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and
most serious crashes are due to human error.

"Autonomous vehicles will never be drunk, distracted or drowsy," said Kaufman.

Beyond safety, self-driving cars could contribute to major gains in fuel
efficiency, lower transportation costs to the consumer and increase
access to rural areas.

So far, 33 states have introduced legislation about autonomous vehicles,
according to the autonomous vehicles legislative database from the
National Conference of State Legislatures.

Leaders are also pushing for legislation on the federal level. The SELF
DRIVE Act was passed with bipartisan support in the House in September
2017. Now, it goes to the Senate.

"Here's what we know – they're coming faster than anyone realizes, and they will be a sea change in society," said Siegel.